Chamber Pres. to talk to faction leaders

Second Chamber President Anouchka van Miltenburg has announced that she will speak to faction leaders about the criticism they expressed about her in December. Second Chamber President Anouchka van Miltenburg In an interview with Volkskrant daily in December, eight faction leaders had “anonymously” levied harsh criticism about Van Miltenburg’s performance as President of the Second Chamber. They complained that dealing with her was like “pulling teeth” and that she had “no sense of the debate”. In a radio interview last Saturday night Van Miltenburg admitted that the criticism hit a nerve –“I am no robot”-, but said that luckily she had already been hardened by the coarse etiquette she got accustomed to at the Binnenhof. She said she was not questioning herself. “I see no reason to doubt whether I am in a good place. I try to do my work as good as possible and I wake up every day with the intention to perform even better than I did yesterday. The criticism is welcome, but it will not make me a different person.” Invitations have already been sent to the different faction leaders to meet with the President individually after the Christmas recess; in interviews with Volkskrant, one leader questioned the chronology, while another said that the individual talks indicated that Van Miltenburg feared talking to them as a group.